Cat Eye Weekend goes off without any problems

"Indoc basically separates the men from the boys." said Richard Williams, a 20-year-old studies of war and peace major from Brigdewater, Mass., as he described just the beginning of the very long and grueling process of becoming a Norwich Ranger. 

According to Williams, indoctrination for Ranger Company is the first two weeks of training which tests candidates physically and mentally.

"We start Indoc around the second or third week in October," Williams said. "(Rangers) goes all the way until about the third or fourth week of March."

This year over Easter weekend the candidates endured Cat Eye Weekend, a culminating event for all the Ranger candidates in order for them to receive their cat eyes, the sign of a Norwich Ranger, according to Williams,

Williams describes Rangers as an accelerated program which helps Army ROTC cadets prepare for the Leadership Development and Assessment Course (LDAC), the final training that Army cadets receive before their senior year of college. 

"Basically, by the time Rangers and Cat Eye Weekend is over," Williams said, "you will be able to do everything that is required of you up until your junior year in college right before LDAC."

According to the some of the new Rangers, Cat Eye Weekend was much more challenging than indoctrination.

"Indoc is spread out for two weeks, but it was only two hours in the afternoon and an hour and a half in the morning," said William Peska, a 19-year-old criminal justice major from Walpole, N.H. "Cat Eye Weekend lasted for a while and with no sleep."

Cat Eye Weekend was much more of an enduring challenge that indoctrination because of the physical challenges, according to Peska.

"They pushed us to the limits," Peska said. "We did patrolling, squad sticks, different kinds of endurance courses and rucking."

Rangers is definitely a challenge, according to Tyler Vaughan, an 18-year-old civil engineering major from Deering, N.H, who is one freshman who received his cat eyes during his first year of candidacy. 

"Cat Eye Weekend was kind of like Indoc pushed into one weekend," Vaughan said. "It was shorter but there was so much more stuff you had to go through."
According to Vaughan, Cat Eye Weekend started with a lot of physical training (PT), which is one of the reasons he went out for Rangers in the first place.

"It is better PT than the Army," said Vaughan, who also joined Rangers to receive the training which, for a freshman, is more advanced than the training offered at Mil Lab. 

Although the event tested all of the skills the candidates had learned throughout the year, there could have been some changes to the training, according to Vaughan.
"The only thing that everyone agreed on was just rucking more," Vaughan said.  "The ruck march at the end just killed everybody."

Even though the personnel in charge of Ranger Company offers excellent training, not all of the candidates make it to Cat Eye Weekend and emerge a Norwich Ranger, according to Williams.

"There is a cut off process," Williams said. "Throughout the year, the PT score gets raised and if you don't make the PT cut, then you will get cut and if you make a stupid mistake during a training event, you will get cut."

According to Williams, candidates who do end up getting cut their first try are encouraged to go out for Rangers again the next year. 

"They are all candidate brothers and sisters," Williams said. "They are encouraged to come back for a second time and if they do, then they will go through it just as equally as everyone else."

Cat Eye Weekend doesn't just happen, it takes a lot of planning, a semester and a half to be exact, and there is a lot of responsibility. involved, according to the Commanding Officer (CO) of Rangers during Cat Eye Weekend, Nicolas Christian, a 22-year-old senior political science major from Pleasanton, Calif.

"I was the CO," Christian said. "My responsibility was supervising the entire event to make sure everything within the 24-hour period ran smoothly." 

According to Christian, who was studying abroad last semester, the preparation of Cat Eye Weekend was spectacular, and Cadet Richardson, who was the CO in Christian's absence, did a wonderful job taking care of the Ranger Company.

According to Ian Richardson, a 22-year-old senior English major from Augusta, Maine, Rangers and Cat Eye Weekend changes every year, whether it be the training, or the candidate class itself. 

"Some classes are smarter, it goes up and down," Richardson.  "Some are smarter, some are more physically in shape and sometimes you get a blend of both. This year we probably had the most fit class since my year."

According to cadets who were Rangers before Cat Eye Weekend, the big event requires a lot of help from anybody in Ranger Company who is available.

"I was a lane walker," said Kevin Gats, a 20-year-old sophomore history major from Livermore, Maine. "When the candidates were doing missions I was pretty much overseeing what they were doing." 

According to Gats, he received his cat eyes his freshman year, but he was still involved in the training of this year's candidate class as a sophomore. 

"We overwatch the candidates," Gats said. "If they do something wrong, we tell them what they did and then PT them a little."

Kevin Lown, a 20-year-old junior criminal justice major from Tyngsboro, Mass.. got his cat eyes his freshman year and as a junior had a little bit more responsibilities during Cat Eye Weekend. 

"I got to write up one of the operational orders," Lown said. "I ran an entire section, the first section of Cat Eye Weekend."

The events that take place during Cat Eye Weekend are subject to a lot of factors, weather being the biggest one, according to Lown.

"I remember our freshman year we had three and a half, almost four feet of snow," Lown said. "That plays into a factor of how far candidates can move and how long each event is going to take. This year it was really hot so we could make the movements a little further."

According to Lown, the relationship between candidates and Ranger cadre is much different during Ranger training than up on "the hill."

"Even if someone is your friend, it does matter," Lown said. "I have to treat them all the same. It doesn't matter if I know them outside, when he was down there, he was a candidate, just like everyone else."

According to Williams, going out for Ranger Company is a very good idea. It teaches basic soldier skills, necessary for LDAC, leadership, and allows Cat Eyes to be a step ahead in their Army ROTC classes.